A Frozen Newspaper

"I take full responsibility" said the owner of the Nasa Borba daily, Dusan Mijic, when a B 92 radio reporter asked him what he thought of the accusations brought by the daily's staff that he is to blame for it’s unproductive policy and financial woes. The daily's crisis culminated last Wednesday, when it stopped going into circulation for a whole week. After seven years of fighting the regime, the competition, secessions and most of all illusions, the daily is on the verge of extinction.

Dusan Mijic's statement may be generous, but it doesn't explain everything. Mijic, a successful cereals merchant (it must not be forgotten that this product is a victual), is responsible because he is the daily's owner. A newspaper, however, is a complex organism based on complementary factors. Mijic's statement is in fact a simplification and a deliberate one, because he never changed his viewpoint. His viewpoint can be defined by the following sentence. I am the owner and you should try to make the best newspaper you can because it's in our mutual interest. Whether such a viewpoint brings profit in the given circumstances is another question. Mijic stressed several times that he wouldn't interfere in the daily's editorial policy, implying that he expected a high level of responsibility, professionalism and effort from all editors and reporters. Without investigating his colorful and rather interesting personality, one just gets the impression that Mijic is a kind of utopian in his capacity as a capitalist. He seems to believe that people are rational beings able to comprehend what common interest is and act accordingly. In that context, Mijic is a very untypical capitalist. People like Henry Ford, Randolph Herst and Ted Turner never invested big money on a key-in-hand basis, or "here is the money do what you know best with it". Having said that, one can't blame Mijic of not having the best of intentions, because there is no evidence to support such a statement.

The seven-year history of the Nasa Borba daily, which stopped going into circulation last Wednesday, was quite dynamic. Late in 1994, the authorities seized the daily's name, equipment and premises under the excuse of "founding rights" and formed their own pro-communist daily called Borba.  The result was that the daily's agile reporters and editors left and formed their own newspapers. That's how the dailies such as Blic, Glas Javnosti and Danas emerged. It was an unhealthy process.  The many and frequent warnings that there is no room in this country for so many newspapers and that the market is getting smaller all the time because of the general poverty were all in vain. The will of foreign investors to help independent newspapers in Yugoslavia is one of the reasons for the foundation of many new dailies, which is why Mijic always looked for sponsors among various non-government organizations. Not many people are willing to talk about the affairs and conflicts among the owners of private newspapers that occurred in the process, but the crocodiles multiplied and the pond kept getting smaller. First the daily Gradjanin went down because of financial trouble and other daily newspapers followed suite. The daily Demokratija got into dire straits, so did Blic in  spite of a large circulation, as that's precisely why the state is squeezing it fully. Hardly anyone in the newspapers business here can say that he is rich and successful. Nasa Borba's financial woes only appear to be purely financial. The daily has a reputation and tradition worth investing in. Is the cause of the present crisis the departure of the daily's best reporters, in a newspaper that stands out from the general apathy and escapism because it is analytical and deals with facts, or is it the shortage of money? In countries with a stable economy, a daily newspaper is a capital investment which takes years to start bringing profit even when a most rational economic policy is pursued. On the other hand, one gets the impression that the policy pursued by the Nasa Borba daily after Sasa Stamenkovic's sad and premature demise was a result of mistaken and strange compromises coupled with arrogance, vanity and a reluctance to accept a dialogue. Quality reporters left Nasa Borba followed by comments like "what the hell, we don't need them to do our job" and founded their own newspapers more or less successfully.

What happened to Nasa Borba was expectable in a certain way. After facing fierce protests from his part-time reporters who didn't get their money for several months, Mijic started complaining of unprofessional behavior, poor editorial work and, consequently, slim revenue. That's the crux of the problem of Nasa Borba and many other media. The disintegration of trust and undefined relations between the employers and their employees. As the president of the daily's syndicate Dragisa Stankovic said on Tuesday, "many of us don't work hard enough but we can't work any harder without any money". The fact is that reporters are paid either unbelievably poor sums for their efforts or unbelievably late, which results in an approach that "I can always work less than they will pay me". Hence the best and most qualified reporters go elsewhere to work for decent money, to be replaced by younger and less experienced reporters who accept working for peanuts weather because they have to or because they just love their job. Quality reporting and a sense of belonging to a team is what actually makes a good newspaper. It is a matter of motivation and team work. It is not an industrial plant where workers go through the motions during their daily routine, it's a creative and highly motivating job.

Mijic was always very good at explaining how Nasa Borba's editors made mistakes, employed the wrong reporters and bad assistants. However, he has no answer to the question why he didn't employ better editors, who would do their job at a higher level. He also can't explain why he didn't pay the people who worked under contract. He is not the only one, because this town is full of reporters who never got their money after leaving a particular daily. However, their inability to form a syndicate in order to fight for their rights is perhaps the best illustration that things always go back to square one in this country.

Whatever the cause, the dispute between Nasa Borba's staff and it’s owner last Wednesday reached the point when ultimatums were exchanged. The daily's reporters first went on strike but left a necessary minimum of reporters working to keep the circulation, so that Mijic couldn't blame the editors that they sealed the daily's fate. The acting editor-in-chief, Ivan Mrdjen, offered Dusan Mijic a sensible demand to revive the daily, make sure that it’s reporters are paid timely and decently, better working conditions and guarantees that the daily has a future. However, the weekly Vreme has learned that quite a few of the staff do not trust Mrdjen and that they want to form their own newspaper. Mijic, however, declared a one week vacation for everybody to give himself some time to think and paint the premises. His intention was to have individual interviews with his employees, form a new editorial team and propose a program for the daily's survival on the market. Both sides reacted in their own ways, Mijic was calm and composed while his employees were angry. One of Nasa Borba's reporters, Zorica Banjac, said last Tuesday that Mijic was only the daily's formal owner, adding that his creditors were the genuine owners - the reporters, the publishing house, paper suppliers and all those Mijic is indebted to. It is interesting that the possibility of taking the matter to court was mentioned only once, during an editorial meeting. Nasa Borba's reporters signed a collective contract with Mijic but they still have no individual contracts.

Dusan Mijic will have no choice but to face a commitment he has been steering clear of for seven years. He will have to take part in the daily's editorial policy, agree or reject the demand for individual contracts and start managing Nasa Borba. The problem is that an owner can't fire his employees while they are on strike. It seems that Mijic's timing was bad this time round. He says that he has no money now and wants to pay off all reporters in petty cash until the end of the year, but the staff is less than willing to accept this option.

He can either sell a part of the daily's shares to someone, which he says he won’t. He can bargain with his editors and reporters and try to persuade them to work for peanuts, which they certainly won’t. He can sell the daily's name and form a provincial tabloid with those who decide to stay with him. His last remaining option is to pay his employees their efforts worth. The staff does not have many bright options either. They can either all sue Mijic, look for a new job, which many of them are doing, or accept his hypothetically  favorable offer for the future (in which they don't believe).

Time will tell.